Immigration-Scarlet Letter

3:45 pm

Fri May 2, 2014

Judge Won't Dismiss Alabama Immigration Suit

A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit challenging an Alabama immigration law that requires state officials to post on the Internet the names of people living in the state illegally who have run-ins with the law.

A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit challenging an Alabama immigration law that requires state officials to post on the Internet the names of people living in the state illegally who have run-ins with the law.

The so-called "scarlet letter list" was part of Alabama's second immigration law that the Legislature enacted in 2012. The Southern Poverty Law Center and others challenged it in federal court on behalf of four residents from Mexico who got arrested for fishing without a state license.

State officials asked U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins to throw out the suit because they have never published the list, but he refused Friday. His ruling allows the Southern Poverty Law Center to proceed with its legal challenge.